The new Berberis cultivar is a product of a planned breeding program conducted by the inventor, Thomas Ranney, in Mills River, N.C. The objective of the breeding program was to produce new Berberis varieties with purple foliage, compact plant forms and low fertility. The cross resulting in this new variety was made during Spring of 2004.
The seed parent is the unpatented, Berberis x media ‘Red Jewel’. The pollen parent is the unpatented Berberis thunbergii ‘Condorde’. The new variety was identified as a potentially interesting selection in Summer of 2005, at a research nursery in Mills River, N.C.
Asexual reproduction of the new cultivar ‘NCBX1’ by stem cuttings was first performed during the Summer of 2007, at a research nursery in Mills River, N.C. Subsequent propagation has shown that the unique features of this cultivar are stable and reproduced true to type in three successive generations.